He's off

Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has admitted that his star player Wayne Rooney has decided that he wants to leave the club, after days of speculation linking him with a move away.

Ferguson, in an interview with MUTV, said that he was ‘dumbfounded’ when he heard the news back in August from United’s chief executive David Gill, and revealed that he and Rooney had not fallen out. Nor could he understand ‘why he came out and said that’ he had. ‘It was disappointing he said that’, he added.

‘I was in the office on 14 August and David phoned me to say he wasn't signing a contract. I was dumbfounded. Only months before he was saying he was at the greatest club in the world.

‘I asked to have a meeting with the boy. He reiterated what his agent said, that he wanted to go. The one thing I said to him was 'respect this club', I don't want any nonsense from you. I don't know if he has done that. I have doubts on that, we are reading all these things about falling out with me and all that nonsense.

‘It's disappointing because we have done everything we possibly can to help Wayne Rooney ever since he came to the club. We have always been here as a harbour for him any time he has been in trouble, the advice we have given him, I was even prepared to give him financial advice.’